Notes from the Home - August 1, 2015

   In the event someone noticed my hiatus; I was having computer difficulties. It was taking me places I didn't want to go. Landing on some of the sites elicited stern warnings from Widows. Other times, the computer transported me to harmless sites I had no interest visiting.

     Friday morning, when Russ gave me a lift to Publix. I asked if he would take my computer to Staples and have them look at it. “Next week one day,” he said. “What’s it doing?” I explained the problem as best I could. After he left to deal with the other items on his agenda, I realized I hadn’t given him much of an explanation. To get a better idea of what was going on, I reconnected the WiFi. Voila! The computer did everything it was told. Whether it will continue to mind me is another question. But for the time being at least, I’m back.

     Al has lung trouble. He has been coughing up blood for a couple months. An MRI revealed that he has cancer in the left lung. He hasn’t been himself since, whether because of the cancer or because of the thought of having cancer. There are days when he is weak, tired and disoriented. On other days, not so much.

     Bowel movements continue to dominate many of his conversations. “It was ten inches long. Hell, it was a foot long. I couldn’t see it all. There were probably another two god-damned inches down in the hole.”

     As I was touring the property Thursday morning, four of the guys from A Cut Above, the lawn-care company that tends the Covenant Woods' grounds, were gathered near the employee parking lot. One had an edger, one a lawnmower, one was armed with a leaf blower, and the other guy had a weed whacker. They weren't doing much, but they had all their machinery running, creating a racket.

     When I went by them, my leg tingled. I assumed it was another nerve announcing its departure. After getting a few yards beyond all the noise, I could hear my phone ringing. It was in my pants pocket. Its vibration had caused the tingling.

     "Tom, Al here. I'm having a terrible morning. I don't even know what goddamn day it is. I got up four times to urinate last night. This morning, I had a movement. It just poured out of me, and it was black.

     "I don't want to disturb Penelope. Would you get in touch with her and ask her to give me a call? I want to see Dr. Mecca; maybe she can take me."  

     I went inside and found Penelope in her office. I told her what Al said. She was about to go to a meeting and said she'd call him when it was over.
     I went to see Al. Compared to his usual standards, he looked thoroughly unkempt. He spent the next thirty minutes discussing his excretory functions interspersed with occasional comments about a raging headache and difficulty breathing. I suggested he have one of the nurses' assistants come up and get his vitals. He didn't want to do that. Nor did he want to call 911. He was more responsive to the idea of taking a hydrocodone and lying down for a while. 
     About that time Penelope called. She listened to the Readers' Digest condensed version of Al's condition and told him he ought to take a nap. Al agreed, and a few hours of sleep did wonders for him. At dinner, he looked much better and was more alert than he had been earlier.
     At quarter-past-nine Friday morning, Al called. He didn't want to disturb Penelope, he wasn't even sure she was working Friday, but he needed a ride across the street. Would I try calling her? I would have but Russ showed up, and I had a senior moment and forgot.
     Fortunately, Al went and disturbed Penelope on his own. She took him to the bank, where the staff assured him his retirement pay had been electronically deposited that morning. Al took out money for the weekend and went home a happy man.

     Jim is the chronically unhappy man with whom Al and I share a table at dinner. Friday he spent most dinner fulminating about the preacher who spoke that afternoon at the memorial service for Annaliese, who died earlier in the week. "A memorial service is to honor the deceased, not a chance to preach a goddamned sermon. You don't preach to people at a memorial service. That was totally disrespectful." But angrily telling anyone who would listen, and more than a few who would have preferred not to, that the minister made a mockery of her memorial service is hardly respectful, either.
     When Mo, our server, asked Al what he wanted for dinner, he said the beef stew and the mixed vegetables. 
     "You don't want the noodles or squash?" Mo asked Al.
    Before Al could answer, Jim vigorously waived his hand and said in a stifled yell, "No. No. No. Give him all three sides."
     "Do you want all three?" Mo asked.
     "He always has all three sides," Jim blurted.
     Mo was confused, and Al was beyond confused. I put the menu in front of Al and asked him to show Mo what he wanted. He pointed to the mixed vegetables. "Just the stew and the mixed vegetables?" Mo asked. Al nodded. Jim pouted.
     "I had too many tacos at wine and cheese," Al said. "I shouldn't be eating at all."
     The table where we sit is along the wall that separates the dining room from the hallway that runs from the lobby to the C Building. Above four feet, the wall is a glass partition, allowing the diners to look out and those in the hall to look in. Jim sits with his back to the wall. "That way I don't have to say hi to people."
      Friday evening, Chelsea, a caregiver, came down the hall, tapped lightly on the glass and waved to Al and me. We waived back. A second or two later, Chuck waived as he walked by, and we waved to him.
     "Who the hell was that?" Jim sputtered as he turned around to see what was going on. 
     I would like to find another table, but Jim is retired military, and he and Al have a lot in common. And Al has the advantage of being hard of hearing. Unless he is looking right at Jim and can see his expression, Al doesn't realize Jim is being a horse's ass.
    
     

     

    

Rhyme Time

The Long, Hot Summer of ’15

Day after day the high’s above ninety,

The humidity is one-forty-four.

I’d like to say it with class and nicety,

How I can’t take this crap anymore.

But daily that damn heat-index rises

And saps my respectful vocabulary.

Heat kills the nice words, and my surmise is

What’s left will draw the constabulary.

Yes, I do try to be understanding

Of Mother Nature’s mysterious ways.

Yet, on days when I’m out standing

In Sol’s searing, sultry scorching rays,

It is difficult to keep a civil tongue,

And polite chatting is impossible.

Within seconds, I have burst a lung

Shouting words and curses reprehensible.

As Grandma said, “It’s hotter than Hades.”

One moment outside, and I turn to an ember,

Wishing for a day with the high in the eighties,

Which I beginning to think will come this November.

The Squirrelly Squirrel

Darting and dashing, the squirrelly squirrel

Loves scampering among the trees

He climbs the oak, then with a twirl

Darting and dashing, the squirrely squirrel

Zooms on down, gives his tail a whirl,

Eats his acorns, and enjoys the breeze.

Darting and dashing, the squirrelly squirrel

Loves scampering among the trees.

I Scream

I really need to have ice cream,

Even just some plain vanilla,

Though rocky road would make me beam.

I really need to have ice cream,

If I don’t get it, I will scream,

I crave it down to my patella.

I really need to have ice cream,

Even just some plain vanilla.

The Flower Lady

Dressed for the weather, in cap and shorts,

The lady tends her garden.

Coaxing, cajoling plants of all sorts

In her haven from life’s noisy din.

The beauty is shared by everyone

Who happens to wander by.

There beneath the blazing sun,

The blooms adorn the earth and sky.

Oh, the lovely flowers cast a spell,

A wondrous sight that glows and glows.

It’s a miracle to me, who cannot tell

A low country hydrangea from a rose.

Notes from the Home - July 1, 2015

     Good son that he is, Russ was at my door at six-ten Friday morning, ready to be his old man's chauffeur du jour. The time had come to have my Baclofen pump refilled, which involves a trip to the Emory Clinic in Atlanta, one hundred miles to the northeast. To make the  nine o'clock appointment we had to get on the road by the dawn's early light. The cool, overcast morning was ideal for rolling down the windows. And we rolled along merrily. The one traffic tie-up we encountered unsnarled moments after Russ' little, red Aveo arrived on the scene.
     Emory's rehabilitative medicine department is no longer in the hospital's main complex. Russ likes the new location, because it is right off the interstate and he doesn't have to navigate miles of surface streets to reach it.
     Maybe it is a sign of age, but the new place gets my vote because of the restroom, specifically the handicap stall. It is large enough that once I maneuver the wheelchair into it there is enough room left for me to do the things I need to do in order to do the thing I came to do. That isn't the case with the handicap stall in the other location.
     Our stay in the waiting room was short, just long enough to let everyone know how hopelessly 20th Century I am. There were eight of us seated there, and the other seven were caressing Smartphones or similar devises. My flip phone was embarrassed and refused to come out of my pocket.
     "Mr. Harris," a nurse said. Russ and I turned toward her, and she told us to follow her. Once she had shepherded us into the proper room, she reviewed my medications, took my temperature, my blood pressure and respiration. "Every thing looks good. The doctor will see you in a minute," she said and walked out.
     Dr. Milton was in a chatty mood. While pushing a sensor over the pump on my right side, just above the waist line, he asked where I lived before coming south. When I told him, Ashtabula, Ohio, he said, "So, you're an Ohio State fan." "No," I said. "I grew up in the Pittsburgh area, and all my sports loyalties remain there."
     He smiled and said he is from Detroit, but also a Pirates and Steelers fan. "It must be the colors. I like the black and gold." In 1979, he was a freshman at Wayne State. "We were all watching the World Series, and I was the only one rooting for the Pirates. Most of them were Tiger fans and thought I should be pulling for the Orioles, since they were the American League team. But my team won."
     Back to business: The doc stuck a needle through my skin and into the pump to retrieve the Baclofen that was still in there and then filled the pump it with a new batch. That done, he handed me a bunch of papers to take to the check-out window, where a young lady and I set the date - for my return visit that is.
     Russ steered the Aveo out of the parking lot barely forty-five minutes after we had pulled in. The quick in-and-out visits are great. But the long drives there and back are a bear.
    

     In the previous installment, I complained about sitting with Jim at dinner. According to Stacey, however, Al and I have mellowed Jim. "He used to be so mean," she said. "We [servers] were talking about it the other day. He's been so much nicer since you guys started eating with him."
     Jim faced a new challenge the other night: eating while Al discussed his bowels.
     "I had a movement this morning," Al said as we were eating. "Do you ever measure your movements, Jim? I do. This one was eighteen inches - one was nine inches, one six inches and one three inches. And yesterday I had one that was a foot long. I must be cleaned out now. How long is the large intestine?"
     An oh-good-god-man-can't-we-talk-about-something-else-anything-else-anything-at-all-besides-this look came over Jim's face. Al did tweek the topic, but only very slightly.
     "A few years ago, they put some sort of attachment on my toilet seat, so I could sit up a little higher and make it easier to get on and off the commode. Well, there's been an odor in my bathroom. I think it is coming from the toilet seat. I called Shirley and asked her to put in a work order for somebody to come and clean the damn thing. I don't know if she didn't put in, or maybe nobody wants to fool with it. I got tired of waiting, got a screwdriver and took the damn thing off.
     "I found out where the odor is coming from - all the caked-on shit. Between the toilet seat and the part they put on, everything was covered with dried shit. I spent an hour-and-a-half scraping it. And I still didn't get all off."
     It was vintage Al. I'm not sure Jim was ready.
     Saturday afternoon, Al called and asked me to come up. The monthly bills were getting the best of him. AARP wanted eighty-three dollars for its roadside assistance service, but Al no longer drives and doesn't own a car.
     "I called the sons of bitches, but I couldn't understand a goddamn word they said. I told them I'm ninety-one and can't hear shit. Then I told them to go to hell and hung up."
     One of these days, the computers that have replaced switchboard operators will be programmed to respond to "Speak up, goddamn it!" Until then, Al will be frustrated every time he phones a business or organization.With a little help from his friend, however, he was able get AARP to cancel the coverage.    
     "Now, look at this credit card bill. Master Card says I owe a hundred-fifty-some dollars. I don't owe any hundred-fifty-goddamned dollars. Where the hell they get that from?"
      "You're right, Al," I said after looking at the bill. "They owe you the money."
     The problem began a few months ago when Al sent Master Card a check for nearly forty dollars more than his balance. The excess amount showed up as a credit balance on the following month's bill, and Al paid it. The next month's bill, of course, had a credit balance twice as large as the previous month, and Al paid it in full. Which is how his credit balance reached its current level.
     "Let's call the bastards and tell them I want my goddamned money back."
      Rather than spending the afternoon talking to the goddamned bastards, I suggested Al spend his way back to a zero balance. He reluctantly agreed. Tuesday morning, Antoinette took him for his weekly grocery excursion at Publix.
     "I bought seventy dollars' worth of shit. I swiped the credit card through the machine, and it worked. But I don't know. I'll probably get a call."
     He hasn't yet, but he has given away about fifty dollars' worth of groceries. "I can't eat all that shit. If I don't give it away, I'll end up throwing it away."
      
    The sun blazed and the thermometer hovered notch or two above ninety when I went out after dinner one evening. Down in the duplexes, Janet sat smoking a cigarette in the shade of her carport. She saw me coming, got up and marched down the driveway.
     "Where's your hat?" she demanded.
     "I don't have one."
     "You don't have one? Well, you better get one."
     "I don't wear a hat in the summer."
     "Well, start wearing one. When sun is this hot and bright, your head gets hot and you'll have a stroke."
     "I'll look for one when I go to the store," I said, trying hard to sound sincere.
     "OK. I'm done scolding. How are you?"
     "I'm fine. Yourself?"
     "I shouldn't tell you this," she said looking down and shaking her head. "I'm having trouble with diarrhea. It's been almost constant."
     Once she had said that Janet immediately steered the conversation to things that delight her. She smiled and said she was going to plant a garden. She'd talked to the maintenance men, and they are going to pull out the evergreen shrubs the previous tenants had planted front of her half of the duplex. And they are going to contact the sprinkler people. The sprinkler in Janet's front yard sprays her kitchen window. It is aimed that direction in order to water the soon-to-be-removed shrubs. Until the spray is adjusted, she can't put the hummingbird feeder her grandson gave in front of the kitchen window, where she wants it.
     "It would be knocked around every time the sprinklers come on."
     Then she turned to squirrels. She is fascinated by way they get up on their haunches and sit like dogs begging for food. They remind her of meerkats.
     "I love all the little creatures," she said. "A few days ago, there were a squirrel and a bird - I don't know the names of all the birds here - sitting side-by-side on Dorothy's bird feeder. It was so cute, they didn't pay any attention to each other. They just sat and ate. I feed the squirrels every day."
     Neither of us went to the Town Hall meeting, where Roger and the staff talk about what a fine job they're doing, and the residents tell them how it could be done better. Rumor has it though, Roger asked the residents not to feed the squirrels. I didn't mention that to Janet.